egislature chooses to
discharge the trust of carrying on the government. No system of
government or of laws can of itself make a people virtuous and happy
unless their rulers recognize in the fullest sense their obligations
to the state and exercise their powers with prudence and
unselfishness, and endeavour to elevate and not degrade public opinion
by the insidious acts and methods of the lowest political ethics. A
constitution may be as perfect as human agencies can make it, and yet
be relatively worthless while the large responsibilities and powers
entrusted to the governing body--responsibilities and powers not
embodied in acts of parliament--are forgotten in view of party
triumph, personal ambition, or pecuniary gain. "The laws," says Burke,
"reach but a very little way. Constitute government how you please,
infinitely the greater part of it must depend upon the exercise of the
powers which are left at large to the prudence and uprightness of
ministers of state. Even all the use and potency of the laws depend
upon them. Without them your commonwealth is no better than a scheme
upon paper, and not a living, active, effective organization."

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

For accounts of the whole career of Lord Elgin see _Letters and
Journals of James, Eighth, Earl of Elgin_, etc., edited by Theodore
Walrond, C.B., with a preface by his brother-in-law, Dean Stanley
(London 2nd. ed., 1873); for China mission, _Narrative of the Earl of
Elgin's Mission to China and Japan_ by Lawrence Oliphant, his private
secretary (Edinburgh, 1869); for the brief Indian administration, _The
Friend of India_ for 1862-63. Consult also article in vol. 8 of
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 9th ed.; John Charles Dent's _Canadian
Portrait Gallery_ (Toronto, 1880), vol. 2, which also contains a
portrait; W.J. Rattray's _The Scot in British North America_ (Toronto,
1880) vol. 2, pp. 608-641.

For an historical review of Lord Elgin's administration in Canada, see
J.C. Dent's _The Last Forty Years, or Canada since the Union of 1841_
(Toronto, 1881), chapters XXIII-XXXIV inclusive, with a portrait;
Louis P. Turcotte's _Le Canada Sous l'Union_ (Quebec, 1871), chapters
I-IV, inclusive; Sir Francis Hincks's _Reminiscences of His Public
Life_ (Montreal, 1884) with a portrait of the author; Joseph Pope's
_Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Sir John A. Macdonald, G.C.B._ (Ottawa and
London, 1894), with portraits of the great statesman, vol. 1, chapters
IV-VI inclu